Pinocchio Unstrung (dir. Rhys Frake-Waterfield)

by Jack Martin | Jul 25, 2026

Certificate: 18

Running Time: 82 mins

UK Distributor: Altitude Films

UK Release Date: 24 July 2026

WHO’S IN PINOCCHIO UNSTRUNG?

Jude-Evan Lloyd, Cameron Bell, Robert Englund, Richard Brake, Jessica Balmer, Jack Art Gray, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Scott Chambers, Karolina Ugrenyuk, Mya Brown, Luca Maranadola, Toni Olabanji, Elliott Spilling, William Turnbull, Belinda Fenty, Kelly Rian Sanson, Jay Robertson

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Rhys Frake-Waterfield (director, writer, producer, editor), Scott Jeffrey (producer), Andrew Scott Bell (composer), Vince Knight (cinematographer), Dan Allen (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A wooden puppet named Pinocchio (Lloyd) makes horrifying plans to become a real boy…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON PINOCCHIO UNSTRUNG?

Say what you will about Jagged Edge Productions – the company behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare and other public domain slashers collectively known as the Twisted Childhood Universe – but at least they seem passionate about the stuff they’re making. Nowhere is that more evident than in, of all places, the ending credits of their latest outing Pinocchio Unstrung, which features behind-the-scenes footage of filmmaker Rhys Frake-Waterfield and his various cast and crew members having a blast whilst fiddling around with the on-set practical effects, including the animatronic that physically portrays the titular character himself.

Unfortunately, you do have to sit through a whole movie before you get to that part. And that movie is, critically speaking, not very good. It isn’t without its moments, especially when it’s clear that Frake-Waterfield knows exactly what kind of film he’s making, but Pinocchio Unstrung is still riddled with noticeable issues in both its filmmaking and especially its writing that make it a little difficult to enjoy, even from an ironic standpoint.

The film sees young James (Cameron Bell), an orphan living with his grandfather Geppetto (Richard Brake), being introduced to Geppetto’s most recent creation: a wooden puppet named Pinocchio (voiced by Jude-Evan Lloyd, and physically portrayed by the aforementioned animatronic), who has not only come to life but also wants nothing more than to be James’s best friend. However, Pinocchio soon finds himself being convinced by both his “wood mother” and a cunning CGI cricket with the voice of Robert Englund to take murderous steps to become a real boy just like James, which of course leads to plenty of that good old-fashioned Jagged Edge carnage.

It is admittedly pretty cool to see a relatively small independent production company like Jagged Edge get enough of a budget to bring some of their more ambitious ideas to life, and a lot of it seems to have gone into making the effects – both the puppetry and the gore – as real as they can possibly feel. The violence is certainly as cartoonishly over-the-top as any of the other films in the Twisted Childhood Universe, but the makeup is much more impressive here as there is such noticeable detail in all the faces being ripped off and heads exploding from shotgun blasts, enough for it to truly embrace its roots in exploitation cinema. As for Pinocchio, the animatronic itself isn’t perfect by any means but it is remarkably designed, almost like it’s a live-action replica of Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion version of the character in how it genuinely looks like a piece of wood come to miraculous life.

However, its impressive effects seem to have come at the cost of almost everything else, as Pinocchio Unstrung suffers from a string of flaws that end up taking away some of the fun. For one, Frake-Waterfield’s script is riddled with atrocious dialogue where it constantly throws out as many stock slasher lines as it can (sometimes in the same scene), and a plot that makes frustratingly little sense, even for the kind of movie that it is. Certain plot points are introduced that raise far more questions than answers when it comes to explaining what motives certain people have, as well as how they’re able to get away with such things due to how genuinely dumb a lot of people turn out to be. There’s also some serious confusion as to whether the murderous title character – who, for the record, gleefully kills people who more often than not don’t deserve it and rips their organs from their bodies to stuff inside his wooden body – should be feared or sympathetic, especially in a climax that gets a bit too ridiculous for its own good.

Even some of the effects suffer under Frake-Waterfield’s uneven direction, with the on-screen puppetry often being out of sync with the ADR voices overlayed on top of it, while the gore can sometimes spring out of nowhere to create a weird tonal distortion, such as one Final Destination-esque sequence in a school gym that seems to be played more for laughs despite the grim imagery accompanying it. Such things can unfortunately take away from what is otherwise an impressive commitment to practical filmmaking, but even in that regard Frake-Waterfield often seems a little out of his depth when it comes to utilising some of the more complex tools in his arsenal. It’s not to say that a filmmaker like him can’t ever competently handle it all, but greater experience is perhaps essential when it comes to blending these sophisticated designs with the usual mechanics of a Jagged Edge movie.

Speaking of the production company, Pinocchio Unstrung definitely fits much of the typical Jagged Edge profile, from the use of familiar filming locations to recycled characters and actors from other Twisted Childhood Universe films randomly popping up in the background, to the somewhat gratuitous male-gaze sex appeal that further shows its roots in exploitation cinema. Only here, the intended sexiness is a lot more questionable than usual – and not just because it’s in a Pinocchio movie, of all places – since the film lingers quite heavily on the scantily dressed and sometimes entirely nude bodies of characters who are definitely established as being of school age. Needless to say, it is more than a little icky, because while the actors are (presumably) adults, the characters sure as hell aren’t, and unless you’re on some kind of register such things can be discomforting to watch.

Only in the few fleeting moments when it embraces how ridiculous its concept is does Pinocchio Unstrung start to come together, but the awkward execution provides too thick a barrier for it to fully work. It’s a shame because, again, the end credits showcase how much fun Frake-Waterfield and co are clearly having in putting this all together, and not even a film critic like myself can take that away from them.

If only, however, the fun extended to the actual viewer – and that’s no lie that Pinocchio’s nose can grow from.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Pinocchio Unstrung is the most technically ambitious project yet from Jagged Edged Productions, with impressive animatronics and puppetry bringing certain figures to life amidst some fun makeup and gore effects, but Rhys Frake-Waterfield’s jumbled script and uneven direction make it difficult to fully enjoy.